On the eve of World War II, one Ger­man Jew­ish fam­i­ly is forced to emi­grate and face a new future in Amer­i­ca one fraught with degra­da­tion big and small, which each per­son suf­fers and con­quers in a unique way. Egon Schnei­der, a thriv­ing oph­thal­mol­o­gist and ladies’ man in Frank­fort, is reduced to being ​“the Cheese Man” at a local gro­cery in Wash­ing­ton Heights; Cat­ri­na Har­ty, a viva­cious daugh­ter of dirt-poor Irish immi­grants, has fought her way to a com­fort­able if unhap­py spin­ster­hood; and Mey­er Leav­itt Egon’s ter­mi­nal­ly acer­bic best friend is a for­mer chil­dren’s book author turned sand­wich-board sales­man turned news­pa­per colum­nist. Togeth­er they suf­fer the won­ders and indig­ni­ties of this strange new world — and each oth­er — in the hopes of cre­at­ing a per­ma­nent home.